


we try to get by, life's rough

by TuesdayTerrible



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 10:13:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12815328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TuesdayTerrible/pseuds/TuesdayTerrible
Summary: In which Jean cant get over Marco. No matter how much everyone wants him too.





	we try to get by, life's rough

**Author's Note:**

> I aint gonna lie, lifes tough  
> We try to get by, lifes rough  
> Try to do it right, its not enough  
> Even though you try you still mess up.
> 
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .
> 
> I actually probably wont keep this work up long. It falls terribly flat in my opinion, but I thought Id give it a chance to be read before I scorched it from my files for forever.  
> I know you probably cant tell, but I really do love Jean Kirschtein.

Armin.

 

Armin likes Jean. He's a skilled natural leader who excells in anything he puts his mind to. He knows exactly why Marco liked Jean. It's the way he carried himself, so raw and blunt to the point it was a handicap as much as a strength.

 

Jean was beautiful in his humanity. He was beautiful in the way he flew on his equipment, back arched in the air, hair tossed by the wind. He was beautiful in the way his hands clenched into fists when he was struggling.

 

It's only now though, a few months into the Corps, that Armin is aware how much Jean is struggling.

 

His hand is almost always clenched into a trembling fist and whenever they sit around a fire his eyes seem to glaze over a bit, like he's not there with them and Armin does not know what to make of it. At first.

 

It clicks, in the most painfully obvious way, when Connie says Marco's name one day at breakfast, accidentally, and Jean flinches so hard he drops his spoon with a deafning clink. But maybe it's only loud to Armin as he watches Jean's hand tremble as he resumes eating as if he never lost his grip in the first place.

 

He hopes the grief stops crippling him soon.

 

_It doesnt._

 

 

.

 

Sasha.

 

Her instincts are usually impecable. She had a sixth sense about terrible things happening, or when good things would, or where to find the best food. So when her instincts take her outside, she's a little bit surprised to see that the thing her gut had pointed her to was none other her comrade Jean.

 

“Did Levi put you on watch?” She says even though she knows the answer is no. She knows that Eren is, and afterwards it's Connie, than her. Jean's not even on the list for guard for the evening.

 

“No.” He says simply offering nothing else, nothing snarky, nothing to continue the conversation. His eyes hold a far off look as he stares at the night sky as if it holds something she can not see.

 

Until she does. Or at least, she thinks she does.

 

“Are you...looking for constelations?” She asks cautiously.

He nods slowly, a long arm extending to a particularly isolated patch of stars.

 

“There.” He says. “He's right there.”

 

And all of a sudden Sasha feels like he's punched her in the gut and knocked the wind right out of her. It's been _so long_ since she's thought about Marco, it's been so long since she's rememberd his dark hair, kind smile, and that group of stars that looks just like the freckles that dusted his cheeks.

 

The tears well up in her eyes and blur her vision and she's wrapping her arms around him tightly before she can even contemplate what exactly she's trying to do. She's not sure if she's trying to comfort him or herself, but the weight of what he's lost bares so heavy on her soul, the pain is stabbing.

 

“Yeah.” she manages between a hiccup of a breath. “Yeah, I see it too.”

 

He doesnt have to say anything else.

 

.

 

Mikasa.

 

Mikasa liked Jean, which was hard for her to acknowledge. It was hard for her to continue to allow people into her heart, but she supposed to an extent fighting along side certain people for years made the attachements unavoidable.

 

Still. She doesnt understand why he flirts with her as she's never seen much of a point to it. So she asks him one day, rather bluntly as they brush their horses down in the stables.

 

“Why do you do that?” She says, to which his response is a raised eye brow, directing his full attention to her.

 

“You know.” she considers. “Flirt with me.”

 

His response, shocks her.

 

“It's better than thinking about what I lost.” The response is so clear, and firm, and his eyes lock with hers and he does not blush or falter. His gaze is confident and piercing and she wonders how she could not have noticed before. She opens her mouth to say anything, maybe something along the lines of I'm sorry when he continues.

 

“Besides with someone as beautiful and talented as you, Id be a fool not too. Gotta give Eren a little friendly competition yeah?”

 

Her cheeks suddenly feel warm and she's not sure why, and she's not sure how, but Jean- seems different to her now. In a way she wished she had noticed before.

 

.

 

Connie.

 

 

He wasnt the smartest person on team Levi. He wasnt the strongest either. But, he was pretty aware he thought. He had away of noticing things that didnt mean much of anything, things that didnt necessarily connect any dots or matter in the grand scheme of things.

 

He noticed the way Ymir came alive around Historia instead of looking like she was bored with exsisting. He noticed the way when Mikasa smiled, it was always unsteady unless directed at Eren. In the way when Sasha was genuinely upset she curled her knees tightly to her chest without a sound.

 

With Jean though it was different. Connie had watched Jean motivate them with eyes blurred with tears, he had watched his hands tremble against his sides and his lips press against his blade handles. The thing was, Jean was hot-tempered but smart, motivational but weak, but more than any of those things Jean buried his pain so deep down it was easy to forget he had behind his sarcasm and natural leadership.

 

In fact, Connie's not sure how Jean is able to bury it so deep. How he's able to carry on. He wonders if maybe Jean, like the rest of them, has become to some point numb to all they've had to do.

 

He realizes how wrong he is after a particularly nasty day. They have human blood on their hands. All of them now.

 

They've taken lives theyre not sure they were ever really prepared to take as Connie trys vigorously to rub the blood off in the basen in front of him- he watches as Armin and Eren do so, clearly in shock. Mikasa helps Sasha rub the blood off her cheek, gently pulling her hands away from her kneecaps.

 

It's only Connie who notices Jean- Jean- who made speeches over the sacradity of human life- Jean who had almost died previously had it not been for Armin taking a human life in his stead- Jean who was most openly apalled by the act, standing off to the side.

 

“You're not upset?” Connie says cautiously.

 

Jean looks a little ill when he responds. “I think I'm just relieved he's not alive to see what we've had to become.”

 

Connie has the decency to hold his dinner until Jean leaves before he vomits all over the ground.

 

.

 

Eren.

 

Eren really has no idea why the others didnt notice. They came to him periodically about Jean, worriedly as if Eren was the one who may be able to put him back together. As if humanitys last hope could also piece together the broken.

 

Eren's not naive enough to think he could make a difference, even though he wants to.

 

Armin talks to him over lunch pushing food around on his plate, his voice soft. “I thought with time... but he just pushes it down.”

 

Sasha tells him while he's on guard duty. She tells him about the stars and his calm eyes and how she had forgotten how much Marco meant to him, to all of them. She tells Eren that she's a terrible friend. She tells him that she's not sure if it's healthier for her to have forgotten, or unhealthy that Jean hasnt forgotten even a little, _and maybe you can talk to him Eren?_

 

Connie tells him in the bunks his hand draped over his eyes, trying to hide his tears. He tells him “Jean wont cry. So I'll cry for him.” And _Eren if you can do anything- please._

 

Even Mikasa says absently one day after training, “I worry about him....sometimes.”

 

Eren hates it.

 

And while he doesnt hate his comrades, he feels something dark eat at him with each new confession of Jean's mourning, or lack there of. Jean's devotion, or lack there of.

 

See? Eren's known ever since Jean showed up in the Survey Corps.

 

That should have been when they knew.

 

They should have seen it in the dead look in his eyes. And maybe that's where Armin was the closest about Jean and himself. It wasnt that they shared an evil malicious look in their eyes. It was the fact they both had a dead look in their eyes. They both lost a part of themselves that no amount of time will be able to prepare or give back.

 

Eren with his mother and Jean with...Jean with Marco.

 

He thought maybe, when he destroyed the smiling titan, he'd experience some sort of....something. He thought again, when he watched Bertolt succumb to death, maybe- there'd be something. But again he was left....unfullfilled. He imagined with every Titan killed- he'd still feel the overwhelming emptiness that plauged him.

 

He had watched Jean expereince the same disastisfaction capturing Annie as his blade broke against trying to free her from her self made prison. He watched the desperation for answers he'd never get, the shakes from all the time that was stolen from him and Marco.

 

Eren hid his pain in anger, he had given himself a mission- a purpose.

 

Eren was angry, and raw. He could scream and attack and fight with everything in his being regardless of his well being. Jean wasn't weak. Jean was stronger than Eren could ever hope to be.

 

Jean was given the natural ability to lead- and in order to do so effectively- he smashed his impulses, his most raw feelings so deep down, Eren was sure he wouldnt be able to breathe. Eren was sure Jean's feelings would have crippled him had he smashed them down instead of letting them run out, rampant and suicidial as they might be.

 

Jean wasnt weak because he couldnt get over Marco. Jean was strong because he was able to go on despite not getting over Marco. He wasnt numb. He was just really, really good at doing the right thing.

 

That's why Eren respected him.

 

The hell he'd let him know that though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
